A possible breakthrough in being able to detect the early signs of pancreatic cancer with a new blood test

Pancreatic cancer has a notoriously low survival rate because it is frequently diagnosed too late.

Each year, around 9,600 people in the UK are told they have pancreatic cancer and 8,800 die from the disease. Only about three per cent of patients in England and Wales survive for five years, according to latest figures.

The new test, described in the journal Science Translational Medicine, was developed by US scientists who used stem cell technology to turn the clock back on late-stage pancreatic cancer cells, allowing them to monitor their early development.

These blood tests are supposed to be able to determine the stages of cancer

The genetically reprogrammed cells secreted blood markers as they progressed from stage-to-stage.

One, plasma thrombospondin-2 (THBS2), turned out to be especially promising. Combined with a known later-stage biomarker called CA19-9, it proved reliable at detecting cancer in hundreds of blood plasma samples donated by patients.

Further work refined the test so that it identified different stages of cancer. It was also able to distinguish between cancer and pancreatitis, a non-cancerous condition that causes the pancreas to become inflamed.

Dr Robert Vonderheide, director of the Abramson Cancer Center at the University of Pennsylvania, where the test was developed, said: “Early detection of cancer has had a critical influence on lessening the impact of many types of cancer, including breast, colon, and cervical cancer.

“A long standing concern has been that patients with pancreatic cancer are often not diagnosed until it is too late for the best chance at effective treatment. Having a biomarker test for this disease could dramatically alter the outlook for these patients.”

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Next the scientists plan to test blood samples donated by pancreatic patients before they were diagnosed.

The aim is to see how well the test can identify cancer in patients showing no symptoms.

People at risk of pancreatic cancer include those with a close relative who has had the disease, or who carry genes linked to the disease, or suddenly developed diabetes after the age of 50.

The test was able to detect genuine cases of early stage pancreatic cancer with an accuracy of 98 per cent. It had a specificity – the ability to identify non-cancerous cases and avoid false positive results – of 87 per cent.

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